City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome, everybody, to the September 15th meeting of the Red Bluff City Council. If you all would stand, please, for the Pledge of Allegiance. Salute. Pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, everyone. See, we've got a great crowd tonight. Thank you for coming. Before you come also understand that there are certain venues that you can use to come and I mean, enter into the city council meetings that would be through zoom through our media, and feel free to access that we will acknowledge you when you raise your hand and so on to make a comment and so forth on the events of the evening tonight. Just a minute, sir. OK? So what we're going to do is I'm going to open up shortly for public comment. Make public comment, please, only when that item on the agenda rises. If you are going to make a comment regarding an agenda item, if you did not understand that before, please do that. Wait till then, because this particular time is open for you to make comments to the council on any other subjects matter that you are concerned about. So with that, I will open it up to public comment.

I'm here to pray. Father, thank you that you have given us such a life that is so good. You've given us this community that we love, this country that we love. Thank you for that. Thank you that you've given us the ability to come and express our concerns to people that you have placed an authority over us. I pray that as we come tonight, folks will be respectful, that they will be articulate, that this council will listen with respect, and that wise decisions will be made. I pray that as the rest of this season of the elections comes up, that wise decisions will be made. This country will prosper as a result of these elections. Watch over us, Father, I pray. Bless this country. I ask this all in Jesus' name. Amen amen this happens to be Constitution week, and I didn't know that until I attended the county meeting this morning and Earlier, last week, as many of you know, was the celebration in memory of the 9-11 tragedy. And the Declaration of Independence was talked about. And we all know these words. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The pursuit of happiness is a false hope. Happiness cannot be pursued and ever found. Thomas Jefferson, who wrote those words, was one of the most unhappy men who ever served in office. The Bible says that you cannot find happiness by pursuing it. You find happiness by seeking alignment with God's principles. In fact, the Bible says if you seek the righteousness that is found in God's purposes, the kingdom of God, if you're aligned with his purposes, you will find happiness. But otherwise, you will be doomed to an unhappy life. And the happiness that is found in righteousness is alignment with his principles. And as Jesus talked about that, he gave lots of examples. But I think the critical thing to find out is that as you search for happiness, what you're really doing is trying to find something or someone who will make you happy. And we have all found, as we have done that, that often we are disappointed in the things and in the people in whom we place our hope. God will never disappoint you.

Amen. Thank you, Scott. And by the way, that's it. He's 80-something years old, which is unbelievable. I've known him for quite some time. All right, today I came. You know, we have this thing called Beef and Brew. Love it. I remember when it was over in Santa Rosa and I was there. The only problem is you got this minor detail. Seven Red Bluff Empathy members were great help in the morning. They're great with everything but this part right here.

filled the balloons with helium and taking them to beer locations.

A decade ago, I was standing in here and I handed the police chief a photo of young kids with beer balloons. All you got to do is switch them damn balloons out for anything but beer balloons. I grew up in an alcoholic family. My dad died at 60. You should have seen a photo of him. You drink alcohol, liver, kidney, brain disease. If we all sat in here for three days and drank beer, you're all dead.

Every one of you. Alcohol poisoning.

I'd like to thank you for doing the cannabis. I'm a veteran. I got a lot of problems. I use it to eat and sleep with. I do not sell it. I am not a cartel member. There was no reason to send a helicopter and try to kill me. There was no reason to run my combat brother out of here. I have a law. I'm very angry. Anyway, legalized cannabis market generates $8.44 billion in taxes. That's not the profit, people. That's like, what, 7%, 8%, 10%, 12% of it? Just think those cartels had state after. No wonder they could go to Mexico and buy a frickin' town. The county needs to get off their can and quit siding with them. Okay, the very last thing. This is that flock camera probably all you guys are here for today. I support it only because I had a dementia patient. We lost the guy. If we had them flock cameras, we would have had him within 15 minutes. We didn't get the guy. Two days, he went 245 miles. By the grace of God, I got him back. And he lived another five years. These flock cameras will work. If you audit it every 30 days, after six months, we'll do it every two months. After that, three months, you understand how it's going to go. You have to audit this. You need to read this. This was Monday. It says, it just talks about the people that misuse it. We need to quit talking about the misuse and the positive. Thank you very much. And I'm surprised I got through this without screaming.

No cuss words here either. Honorable Mayor, members of the City Council.

Again, let me remind everyone if you have a comment, please, that if it's on the agenda, wait to comment on that item on the agenda time, please. Thank you.

Staff, thank you for supporting the City of Red Bluff. And fellow citizens, good to see you all here this evening. My name is Ken Boone. I'm here to read the scriptures. One thing that fascinates me is God's interaction with people on a daily basis. He's here right now interacting with us. A good example is taken from the Old Testament. That's where we're going in 1 Samuel chapter 4 this evening. You need to know that there is a dim view that God takes of competition. He does not like false gods. He does not like idols. And there's an idol that shows up in this evening's reading. Its name, not his, its name is Dagon. The Israelis had a problem with disobedience because when they disobeyed, they lost their wars. And this is right in the middle of one of those difficult times. Phineas' wife was pregnant and about to give birth and she heard the news that the ark of God was taken and that her father-in-law and her husband had died. She kneeled down, gave birth, and her pains came upon her. And about the time of her death, the women who stood beside her said to her, do not be afraid for you've given birth to a son. But she did not answer or pay attention. She called the boy Ichabod saying, the glory has departed from Israel because the ark of God was taken and because of her father-in-law and her husband. She said the glory has departed from Israel for the ark of God was taken. Now the Philistines, the enemy camp, took the ark of God, belonging to the Hebrew people, brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod, and then the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it to the house of Dagon and set it by Dagon. When the Ashdodites arose early the next morning, behold, Dagon had fallen on his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord. So they took Dagon and they set him up in his place again. But when they rose early the next morning, behold, Dagon had fallen on his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord. And the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off on the threshold. Only the trunk of Dagon was left to him or it. Therefore, neither the priests of Dagon nor all who entered Dagon's house tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod to this day. When the men of Ashdod saw that it was so, they said, the ark of the God of Israel must not remain with us, for his hand is severe on us and on Dagon, our God. Indeed, God is powerful. Thank you.

Thank you. Again, when you hear that music, that means three minutes are up. So thank you, everybody. And if not, just watch the clock. So thank you. Go ahead.

Hello, I'm Pastor Ken Auld from Spirit Life Church in Los Melinos. This is the first council meeting I've ever been to. But I'm honored to be here. I'm honored to be with all of you, and I thank everyone for their time. I'm just here to read a short prayer without comment. So I'm just going to go ahead and pray. So Lord, we ask you for financial blessing and breakthrough for Red Bluff and Tehama County. We ask you, Lord, for a way out of lack and bring us into your abundance. We pray that, Lord, you will give us guidance and direction, show us what we may fail to see. We need the leading of your Holy Spirit. We ask for open doors of new opportunity and provide us with unexpected provision. Ease the heavy burden and worry from our minds and grant the City Council wisdom to manage and to steward well what you have placed in their hands. Help them to walk in honesty and integrity and replace our anxiety with your perfect peace as we put our trust and your faithfulness in Jesus' holy name. Amen. I failed to mention also I am the moderator for the Tehama County Ministerial Association. Thank you for your time.

Anyone else? No? Okay. Thank you, everyone. I don't think we can fit any more chairs in here. Sorry that some of you have to stand, but we'll go on here. Okay. Thank you, everyone. So, Mr. Westbrook, any announcements of agenda corrections?

Just one, Mayor. The police department has requested removal of item number 12 from the agenda, so that one will not be heard this evening.

okay council members please remove agenda number item number 12. thank you we'll go on to staff items and before any staff items are presented excuse me tom i'm just going to make an announcement I would like to announce tonight, and I'm glad there's such a big crowd. I'm sure you're here to celebrate along with this great couple, but the celebration of marriage of Mark Moyer. Mark, look over here. Come through the door so everybody sees you. And Beth Ann Moyer now. Congratulations to you. Give him a hand, you guys. All right. Good, good, good. All right, Tom, go ahead.

Just a few items to update the council and the public on. October 1st is the annual Chamber Awards Dinner. It's almost sold out, so if you do wish to participate, please reach out to the Chamber of Commerce so you can secure your tickets. Also, tomorrow night, September 16th, is the Community Outreach Meeting for the Proposition 218 Water and Sewer Rates. That will be held at 5.30 p.m. at the Red Bluff Community Center. Anybody that would like to participate, please come by. And then also just wanted to announce that your next regularly scheduled city council meeting is October 6th. That will be the day that the protest hearing actually takes place in these chambers. So just wanted to announce those upcoming events.

Thank you, Tom.

Scott. Yes, we completed taking recruitment for police dispatcher, and we will be conducting interviews in the next few weeks. We also conducted interviews for a police officer and are moving one through background. And we also did orientation for four part-time firefighters this morning. And that's all we have.

Thanks, Scott.

Good evening. Just a couple updates. There's been a lot of Facebook chatter, so I will confirm that we are getting an El Palo Loco in the old Arby's restaurant. We've also started the demolition project for the old Denny's that will be the premier oil. The Panda Express has also began their demo and remodel to become the Panda Express. And the Bluffs affordable housing apartment project that is located on Southridge and Vista has also pulled their permits and ready to start doing their work to get that project off the ground.

And that's it from community development.

Thank you.

The Dutch Brothers under construction near Grocery Outlet.

That was the other one. Thank you, Tom. And Dutch Brothers is relocating to the grocery outlet parking lot, and we have got those permits issued as well and going to be conducting those groundbreaking activities.

Thank you, Ben.

Scott Miller. Yep. The scene in the news recently, we were saddened to hear that the PHI Air Ambulance Service has suspended their services out of the Red Bluff. We're hoping that we can get them back if they get some of their stuff settled out with their insurance companies. They were a good tenant out there. Always like to see a good asset out there. Going along with the airport as well, I was just informed today that our local base T6 Warbird Air Racer in Roswell, New Mexico, qualified for the race and is the fastest time. So we're hoping number 50, Abracadabra, would be able to pull off the gold this year. If you notice over at the corner of Pine and Washington City crews that removed a tree over there in that that island We're in the process of getting that removed and that concrete fixed where the roots have lifted up that So stay soon for a little bit of traffic control on that, but that'll probably come in the next couple weeks or so Chief

good evening mayor members of council uh piggyback off mr garrison uh first yes we started uh four of our five new reserves today uh today was a little little trying getting them through all of the the digital aspects of our orientation but they're well on way on their way and tomorrow they'll be out in the field actually pulling a hose and squirting water so that'll be a really good thing and that piggyback on miss moyer now um We got a lot of really, really great training a couple of Fridays ago at the old Denny's building. I would really like to thank the new owners for allowing us that opportunity. We don't always get the chance to be able to walk around on a roof and then cut holes in it. So that was pretty important for our department and some of our newer personnel to get that experience. This last weekend, Chief Kingsley deployed locally for Saturday, Sunday, and was released yesterday about 5 o'clock for an OES preposition because of the red flag warnings that we had this last week. And then hopefully we're nearing a conclusion of all the final cutting down in Dog Island Park. There's just a small area that's left, and I know we've had HG crews the last few days, so hopefully we're getting to that. But that's going to roll us right into coming up with a maintenance program for it. because a lot of it's already started to grow back from what we've done at the end of last year. So we have crews back out there again running masticators and coming up with a plan for the maintenance, periodic maintenance, so that we hopefully never have quite the jungle that we had when we started this project.

Thank you, Chief. Appreciate that. Mr. Young, Paul Young, please.

Thank you. The financial audit is scheduled for next week. We've already sent in the initial request of information, so we're currently on track for finishing in the normal amount of time. Also, the CFDA has posted notice of the October tax rate changes, which includes the Street Smart initiative. Even though that new tax is collected in October, we won't see it until December. That's it.

Thank you, Paul. Chief Ortega. Thank you, Mayor. For the council, on Monday, September 21st, we will have an internal promotional and swearing-in ceremony for two new employees at our department. So I'll provide details later in the email to all of you. Thank you, Chief. Robin Kaufman.

Nothing this evening Tom and Scott both addressed my items.

Okay. Thank you very much All right, we have no Commission's report tonight So we have one presentation tobacco and public health in Tama County information local policy decisions Just an informational item, please

good evening mayor and city council members i want to thank you for allowing me to come and present my name is minnie sager and i am the can you hear me okay just put it down just a little bit there you go you guys were all too tall so i just want to thank you for having me here i am the public health director for tehama county health services agency and i am here to talk about our um oh hang on a second here I have a little technical difficulty. It's not moving. Okay, here we go. We got it. Okay, so the purpose of today's discussion is to talk about the morbidity and mortality impact of tobacco use in Tehama County and the effects of tobacco use on youths and what are some best practice considerations when thinking about a TRL. This is just to give you an idea. These are some county demographics. What this is showing is our population size, our race and ethnicity. This is also showing the trends. You can find this actually on our website on the public health page. So basically when we are talking about tobacco disease burden, smoking is associated with damage to nearly every organ system and is a well-established risk factor for cancer, heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes complications, pregnancy complications, and premature death. So it's found that there's no tobacco or nicotine product that has been shown to be risk-free. So the greatest documented risks come from combustible products, such as cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos, hookahs. But smokeless tobacco, e-cigarettes, heated tobacco products, and nicotine pouches also carry documented health risk. So what this slide is showing you is where we are in comparison to the state in Tehama County. So 19.1% of adults have rates of current tobacco use compared to 9% in the state. So that's a fairly significant difference. So what does it look like when we're talking about tobacco use in youth? And here you can see that in general, so for all tobacco products, that's all the products I just mentioned in the previous slide, you're looking at 16.4% in Tehama County versus 7.3% at the state. And then vape use is also very high, so 13.3% versus 5.9 of the state average. And you can see that vaping is a more popular form of tobacco use among youth, because you can see there that the cigarette use is fairly, it's still higher than the state, but it's lower compared to the other types of tobacco use. So why is this a concern? It's a concern because nicotine is addictive and research indicates that adolescents and young adults may be more susceptible to addiction because brain development continues well into your 20s. So it's also been known to be called like a gateway drug, like it's a start to them exploring other types of drugs. So here what you're looking at is just a comparison of youth tobacco use in rural areas versus like urban areas. So as you can see, and it's looking at trends over time between 2016 and 2023. So it is more prevalent in rural communities compared to their urban counterparts. Tobacco use at any age is not good for the body. It significantly can lower life expectancy because it causes disease that can do that. In Tehama County, our life expectancy is 76 and a half years compared to 81 years at the state level. And in addition, in 2024, the end of 2024, Public Health completed its first community health assessment where it looked at the disease burden of all types of diseases within the county as a whole. And cancer was the number one cause. It was so much of a number one cause that UC Davis actually reached out to us and said, what's going on? We want to work with you. And from those initial calls, We actually now in the county have a Tehama County Cancer Collaborative. But the reason I bring this up here is because the two top cancers in the county were lung cancer and colorectal cancer. So those are the issues that the collaborative is kind of focusing on. Okay, so menthol and flavored tobacco products. Flavors make tobacco products more appealing to youth, and they can mask that negativity of tobacco. Fruit, candy, mint, and menthol flavors are commonly used by youth who vape. Menthol creates a cooling sensation that makes tobacco smoke feel less harsh and easier to inhale. And then evidence also indicates that flavored tobacco products can contribute to youth initiation and continued use. So some things that you may want to consider when you're considering your TRLs is, what does the local data tell you about adult smoking and youth tobacco and vaping use, secondhand smoke exposure, and tobacco-related disease? Are there existing state tobacco laws consistently understood and followed by local retailers? What resources would be needed to administer a TRL, including staffing, training, inspections, education, and appeals? What permit fees or other funding could cover administrative costs? What education and cessation resources could complement a compliance-focused ordinance? And how would effectiveness of that ordinance be measured? So, and I just want to say that the cessation piece is very important, right? The two kind of need to go hand in hand and should the city decide to move in that direction or at any point in time want to work with public health to help on the cessation and the education piece, we'd be happy to work with you on that. This we just wanted to put in here to kind of just show what are some of the surrounding areas, different counties doing in this area. And so you can see there the jurisdiction, when they enacted, what the update was, whether or not there was any fees or if there were flavor restrictions. But in kind of summary, the components of this basically just include like requiring retailers to hold a local permit to sell tobacco, public display of the permit at point of sale, periodic compliance inspections, retailer education, age verification requirements, and the like. So in summary, adult smoking rates are higher than California average. Youth vaping and tobacco use exceeds statewide rates and rates in comparable urban communities. Tobacco-related disease burden is substantial and it's reflected in high mortality from heart disease, cancer, and lower respiratory disease. And tobacco and nicotine use contributes to addiction, cancer, cardiovascular, respiratory disease, pregnancy complications. oral disease, and premature death. So I want to thank you for having me do this presentation. And I have a handout here.

Can I give that to you for the members?

It just kind of summarizes in a little bit more detail what we're going to talk about tonight.

Give me your name again, please. Minnie. Minnie, just stay there for a second. Counsel, do you have any questions for her? Anybody? Chris?

Is there any socioeconomic connection to smoking?

Yes, I believe there is. I would have to give you the stats. I'd have to look that up for you. We'd be happy to do that. But yeah, socioeconomic usually, you know, we see high levels of poverty within our county, and we also see that generational use of it. So when you combine those two things, a lot of it is that behavior is established as the norm early in one's life.

Thank you. Anything? Mark? No. Pat? No. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you for your presentation. Appreciate that. All right. We'll go on to our last council, if there's any conflict of interest, declaration regarding any items on the agenda.

Do you want to get to the discretion of the council?

You guys want to hear anything? OK, I'll give you a comment. Go ahead.

It'll just be two quick seconds. On slide four, there was a comparison to Tehama County to the state average. But it says state average of 9%. It's actually significantly higher. It's about 12%. So we're not too terribly far off. I did want to note that Tehama County and all of Northern California actually has the least amount of sales to decoys compared to that data. And then you were just asking for the socioeconomic. And it is definitely housing type, education, access to mental health are all related factors in tobacco use. And if Tehama County is as high up on that list as 19%, these would definitely be factors to look at. Did you want this? It's just an extra copy. And that was all.

All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Since I opened up to her, anybody else wants to comment? Okay. See, no one will just go on then. No conflict of interest? Cassie? Nothing? Okay. Thank you, council. All right. We'll go on to the consent agenda. Again, items on the agenda are two through six, and anybody in the public, do you want, and council can pull any items at this time, and we'll make them the first item on the agenda to be brought up. If anybody wants to remove an item, please state so right now.

Pat? No. Mark? Thank you.

Chris? No. Anybody in public? Haven't seen none? Okay. Then I will go on to ask for a vote on the consent agenda, which is item number two, approval of city council minutes, August 18th. market, open market purchases, 2,000 or more. Four, approval of warrant list. Five, resolution of the Red Bluff City Council authorizing acceptance of fiscal year 2027 alcoholic beverage controls ABC OTS grant program. And number six, resolution of city council authorizing public works director or city manager to sign agreements for federal and or state funding for certain transportation projects. Do I have a motion?

So moved to approve.

Motion by Councilman Deiters. Second? Second. Second by Mark Clement. Anita, please take the roll.

Councilmember Pope. Yes. Councilmember Hurton. Yes. Councilmember Deiters. Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Clement. Yes. Mayor Gonzalez.

Yes. Item passes unanimously. We'll go on to regular agenda items, which is number seven. Just give me a moment, please. All right. This is an informational item only. This is the automated license plate reader program. And again, it's an informational item. And I would ask those that are here, how many are here to speak on that particular issue? Would you raise your hand? Okay, very good. Thank you. So with that, this particular item, again, is an informational item, and I will turn it over to our police chief, Quentin Ortega, please.

Thank you, Mayor and Council.

At the regular meeting on September 1st, 2026, council requested additional information on our license plate reader program. That program is also known as ALPR or LPR. So I'll refer to both of those during the presentation. And this is going to be a brief overview. So hopefully that will allow time for citizen comments or council questions. And if any of the community members have questions later, you can always reach out to me directly if there's not enough time tonight.

Chief Ortega, do you have a microphone that you could speak into? Oh, thank you. Is that better?

You don't want to hear that. The Red Bluff Police Department and the City of Red Bluff has had a license plate reader program for about 10 years, so in 2016. In December of 2016, the Red Bluff City Council conducted a public hearing and heard information regarding Asset forfeiture funds being provided by the Tama County Interagency Drug Enforcement Board for implementation of that program. That asset forfeiture funds were awarded in $140,000 from the TIDE Board for the City of Red Bluff and Red Bluff Police Department and additional agencies in the county to start a license plate reader program. The council approved that through that public hearing, and it was approved for Motorola Vigilant Solutions to start that program. That vendor, Motorola Vigilant Solutions, is the same vendor that we use today. The APLR systems are deployed within the right-of-way and are legally authorized investigative tools used by law enforcement. The Rebel Police Department's use of the LPR technology is governed by applicable federal and state laws along with our local policies and procedures. Access to the LPR information is limited to legitimate law enforcement purposes and is subject to auditing and accountability requirements. What is the LPR technology and how is that used? So the technology is a camera. It captures a license plate and associated vehicle image as the vehicle passes that camera. The system records information such as the license plate, the date and time and location from when that vehicle passes through a camera. There's no identifiable information of a person. It's just the vehicle and the plate. There's a separate system that's used if there's a legitimate law enforcement purpose for an officer or an investigator to determine who owns the vehicle and where that vehicle is registered out of, like the address or the location of wherever that person resides. So the LPR cameras in itself do not capture identifiable information. It's just the image of the plate and the vehicle. The city currently has eight LPR cameras located at two fixed locations and two mobile radar message board trailers. In your agenda report, my math was terrible, and I forgot about the trailers have two cameras. So I said in your agenda report there were six, but there's actually eight cameras because the trailers have two cameras in them. There are currently three locations within the city of Red Bluff where flock LPRs are installed. There's two additional locations that are pending. Those cameras are not owned or operated by the city of Red Bluff or the Red Bluff Police Department. They're owned and operated by the Tama County Sheriff's Office. The LPR system predominantly involves the stolen vehicles and the recovery of stolen vehicles. Three notable cases for the city of Red Bluff that actually used LPR technology to help solve crimes is the U.S. Bank robbery where that suspect was also believed to be involved in robberies in Redding and Chico. And with the use of that technology, the suspect was located and apprehended. We also had a suspicious death where the people involved in that were trying to cross over to the Mexican border and the use of that LPR technology helped us locate them and then eventually had those people interviewed and those people were subsequently arrested for different crimes from different areas. And the next one was a child abduction where a parent tried to leave the US and go into Canada and with the use of that LPR technology we were able to locate third direction and they were prevented from going into Canada and then that parent was subsequently arrested. So those are just notable cases for our area specifically aside from just stolen vehicles or the recovery of stolen vehicles. Interagency data sharing which means the City of Red Bluff shares our LPR data with 172 other California law enforcement agencies. The ability to share that technology or that data with those agencies involves a memorandum of understanding with each one of those agencies. And if we have that MOU, then those agreements and those agencies are responsible for conducting their own audits for accessing that data and making sure that it's used for law enforcement purpose only. Same thing for us. We have access to their data as well from that same MOU. The Rebel Police Department does not share its LPR data with federal agencies or out-of-state law enforcement agencies. It's only California agencies that have MOUs with us. If there's an agency that wants to use or access our LPR data, then the commander in charge of that program will assess the request and determine if it's lawful and legitimate. the department will continue to follow applicable legal requirements and department policies regarding the retention, access, auditing, use, and release of LPR information. And a special note, since 2022, California legislation has failed to provide more regulation of the LPR systems, and the most recent case that failed in the California Assembly was August of 2026. So there's been multiple attempts to try to regulate the LPR system the way it is now and those attempts have failed. And it just shows that law enforcement is conducting their business in legitimate purposes and it's using it for the purpose that it was intended without a lot of misuse. accountability and auditing. So when an authorized user conducts a search of the LPR database, that query records information including the type of search, the user name or the person requesting the information, the case or incident number, the date and time of the query and the reason for the search. The police department conducts periodic audits of the LPR system, and that responsibility lies with a support special services commander who is the lieutenant who oversees that program. The last audit was done in August of 2026, and no issues were found during that audit. Any future expansion would be evaluated based upon demonstrated public safety needs, available funding, applicable legal requirements, privacy considerations, and the department's ability to appropriately manage and audit this system. Again, that's just a brief overview of what our system does, and it's been in place since 2016 without any issues for us, the city, or through the state or the federal government. And if you have any questions, I'm available. So is the lieutenant. Lieutenant Brown is here with me, so he has more intimate knowledge of the program. And with that, I rest. Thank you, Chief.

Appreciate that. Council, any questions for Chief Ortega? Pat? Okay. I just received a message that the meeting is hard to hear for those that are attending through the Internet or so forth. So if you would speak, put that mic down. And council members, put the mic right up to your voice so they can be heard. And everybody that's speaking, please put the mics right next to you, and that way they can hear what we are saying. So I will open it up for... for public comment on this particular item. And also, those that are standing, there's some chairs that have opened up if you would like to come and sit down. And I understand, please, that if you ask a question of counsel, it's their right to answer. They hold that right. So please, you will have three minutes. And that includes your answers from counsel. So please, go ahead, sir.

Yeah, thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name's Eric Johnson. I am a resident of Red Bluff, and I stand before you today to urge you to reject or remove the flock safety camera system that's in place currently. These automatic license plate readers may be sold as a simple tool for public safety, but in reality, they create a searchable record of the movements of every driver who passes by, innocent or not. Every trip to work, to church, to a doctor's office, to a political meeting, or simply to visit family becomes data points that can be assembled into a detailed portrait of our daily lives and activities. That is not targeted policing. That's mass surveillance. We do not lose our expectation of privacy simply because we drive on public roads. When cameras are dense enough and the data is retained and shared across agencies, the system reconstructs where we go, when we go, and with whom we associate without a warrant, without probable cause, and without our consent. Courts have already warned that, at a certain scale, this crosses constitutional lines. Several cities have recognized the danger and canceled their contracts for exactly these reasons. The risk of abuse is not theoretical. Across the country, officers have used these systems to stalk former partners, track private citizens for personal reasons, and conduct searches far outside legitimate investigations. Once the data exists in a national network, it can be queried by agencies outside our city and outside our control, sometimes contrary to local policies or state law. We cannot unring that bell. Public safety matters. Solving crimes matter. But we already have tools that require accountability. Warrants, specific suspicion, and traditional investigative work is what our agencies have available to them. Trading the privacy of every resident for incremental gains is a false bargain. Once these cameras are normalized, they expand. Once the data is collected, it can be misused. And once trust is broken, it's hard to restore. I ask you to protect the character of our community and vote against deploying or continuing the expansion of these flock cameras. Choose transparency, restraint, and the principle that free people should be able to move about their city without being cataloged into a database. Our safety and our liberties are not opposites. They both depend on limits to government power.

And I thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

I'm Amy Gibbs. Can you hear me? No. I've lived in Red Bluff for many years, I think about 15, and have watched it get worse, not better. And one of the reasons for this, I believe, is due to the elected officials who are supposed to represent we the people are not doing so. Also due to the fact that you guys are not upholding the people's constitutional rights, which may I remind you is also a violation of your oath of office that you took. With that said, this brings me to the ALPR cameras that were put up in town. These cameras were installed without the consent or vote of the people that you're supposed to represent. These cameras are a violation of our Fourth Amendment right, not only the privacy clause, but warrantless searches and seizures. That is a part of the due process of law. As I previously explained in the typed letter that I emailed to all of you to only get two responses. So I want to thank you, Casey Pope. And the other was a supervisor. No email response back from Chief Ortega or the sheriff or any others. You should never ignore the people that you're supposed to be working for and serving. I think the two who did respond. Okay, back to the cameras. Also, another disturbing fact is that law enforcement has been found on numerous occasions to misuse these cameras. The Washington Post mentioned and identified there have been at least 69 police officials and law enforcement employees that have been accused, charged, and even convicted for misusing ALPR cameras. The Institute for Justice database has similarly tracked well over 100 overall instances of ALPR database abuse and misuse. So as you can see, we the people cannot trust law enforcement with using them. There are plenty of other tools that can and have been used to catch the true criminals without violating the people's rights. These cameras are not making the people feel safe or protected. In fact, they're making us feel less safe, concerned, worried, and violated. There are many instances where the cameras have misread license plates, and innocent people have been stopped at gunpoint, arrested and jailed, sometimes for days at a time, disrupting their lives and livelihood. If you look at the paperwork that was handed to you, there's a picture of an innocent woman who spent 13 days in jail because of these cameras, and that's only one story. Thank you.

Anyone else?

Good evening. My name is Brianna Phelps. I am a longtime Red Bluff resident, local business owner, and I work in social media and digital communications. I understand ALPRs help solve crimes, but does it work is not the only question government has an obligation to ask. The other question is, what power are we giving government over people suspected of no crime, and what enforceable limits exist on that power? Because these cameras don't just capture suspects. They capture all of us. Our movements can be collected, retained, searched, and shared. And as citizens, we should be able to easily see what is happening to this data. Transparency should not require a treasure hunt. Grass Valley provides an important precedent. Their police chief acknowledged that ALPR has helped solve numerous crimes. Yet after reviewing the technology and the privacy concerns surrounding it, his department chose to indefinitely suspend its fixed ALPR cameras and move toward canceling its flock contract. That's important. Grass Valley did not suspend a technology that failed. They were willing to suspend a technology that worked because effectiveness alone was not enough to answer the question surrounding government power. Tonight, I am asking this council to place the ALPR program on a future agenda as an actionable item and consider suspending the program while its scopes, safeguards, data sharing, and continued necessity receive a full public review. I have information with me tonight of many other California jurisdictions that have canceled their contracts, and most importantly, a letter directly from the Grass Valley Police Chief. I will organize these materials along with the answers to my questions from tonight and make them easily available to Red Bluff residents so this conversation can grow and continue on social media.

But before it does, I would like these questions answered.

What exactly did Red Bluff originally authorize in 2016 regarding the retention, sharing and use of this data and has that authority and technology expanded since then without returning to this council or the public? It says, we originally started with three cameras. I would like to know how we ended up with eight without it returning to the public. Second, can an authorized user technically search historical ALPR data to reconstruct the lawful movements of someone who is not suspected of a crime? That's a yes or no question. Third, once Red Bluff shares ALPR information with another agency, can that agency keep it, copy it, or share it again? Where are the safeguards exactly? Tell us which law and show us the exact provision to prove Red Bluff has complete control over this data and that the laws have caught up with the technological advancements to support. And respectfully, please do not substitute an audit log for a safeguard. An audit can document that a boundary was crossed. It does not create a boundary. Government safeguards are not supposed to depend on whether we trust the person currently holding our office. Because administrations change, technology changes, yet government power will remain. So unless the city can clearly show the public where this power begins, where it ends, and what prevents those boundaries from moving, the responsible response is not just trust us. Prove the safeguards with full transparency in today's public square, social media. Let Red Bluff citizens meaningfully participate in this conversation. Because if this program deserves the public's trust, it should withstand the public's scrutiny.

Thank you.

Good evening, council. Have any of you guys watched Person of Interest?

Go ahead and make your comment.

It's a question, JR. I'm making my comment. Please don't interrupt me. Anyway, I ask that each one of you go watch at least one episode of Person of Interest. I'm not saying that our departments are misusing them. But the thing with cameras being in public, and watching and gathering our movements. I mean, COVID was a thing. It was a social experiment, and they desensitize us. The government desensitizes us to every little thing to make things seem more and more and more normal so that we don't question it and we don't scrutinize it. I think it's important, and I ask that each one of you please watch Person of Interest, one episode, and see what can happen with those cameras. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, honorable counsel. Great employees. I'm here in front to speak about the ALPR cameras. We have Eureka, California, Richmond, California, Los Altos Hills, California, Santa Cruz, California, Santa Clara County, California, Bishop, California, Oxnard, California, Los Angeles, California and of course Grass Valley, California. All these have in common is that they discontinued their camera use which out of these cameras all except for one are the same exact cameras we have. Their use is a great tool for law enforcement, but they have an inherent flaw. They're only 90% accuracy. And depending on weather, lighting, the speed of the vehicle, obstruction of plates, and design of plates, which means from other states, that accuracy drops. So right now, it's one out of every 10 plates get the numbers either are changed because of the camera itself being digital. They also have a chance of transposing one plate onto another. The license plate readers as they are was originally started in 1976. Their first act of where law enforcement actually arrested somebody was in 81. In 1998, they switched from analog to digital. And that's where they started having their problems. Once it was digitized, it makes it easier for the computer system itself that regulates them to transport one number onto another. And that's where a lot of people were getting arrested, because they were getting misreported as being either a stolen vehicle, a person of interest for different courses, as per that lady in front of you that you guys were given. My problem with this system, and I think we need to look at, is the system itself needs to be cleaned or gone through or different aspects of it every 30 to 90 days according to the Motorola website. Thank you. Anyone else?

Hello. I'd like to give some information about flock because this also applies to Motorola. Let's see. They're just license plates readers. That's incorrect. On October 17, 2024, Flock's website announced that they bought Aerodome, a drone company. And then on September 25, 2025, Flock announced that they put their Flock cameras on the – I'm sorry. I'm not used to public speaking. It's okay. On their drones. Okay. Flock also offers another service called Nova. Nova is a platform that combines data obtained through Flock cameras, public records, commercially available data to build digital profiles and track people without warrants. In May of 2025, Nova was released as an early access program and has been used by select law enforcement. On September 3rd, a portion of a Flock webinar was leaked. The webinar was a sales pitch from Flock operating system or Flock OS. If you don't know what an operating system is, it's like Windows 11, Windows 8. Those are different operating systems. In the video, the Flock's director of marketing states that the Flock cameras, drones, and Nova are all linked to this Flock OS. The marketing manager then demonstrates how Flock OS can be used to monitor public events such as 4th of July fireworks shows, parades, bike races, Mardi Gras, and protests. The vehicles she, or the vehicles, The video shows she has access to traffic information, a response plan in case things go sideways, floor plans to nearby buildings as well as video feeds of both outdoor mounted cameras and cameras inside businesses and government buildings. She then goes on to demonstrate how one can use the flock operating system to track anyone who leaves the public event anywhere they can go to the city or even to their own homes. She then explains how you can also use FlockOS to send police out to intercept the individuals once they are away from the crowd or even out of public to avoid causing a scene. These are important points because while this information does pertain to Flock in particular, it's not limited to Flock. There are other companies, such as Plantar, Osiris, Lexus, and even Motorola, who have invested in similar technologies and similar operating systems to Flock OS. Even Amazon Ring's doorbell system has done this. So I would like to urge a reconsideration of the license plate reader cameras as well.

Thank you very much. Anyone else?

And good evening, Council. Matt Hanson, former Red Bluff Police Lieutenant, City of Red Bluff. And I'm the original administrator of this program. In fact, 10 years ago, I was tasked with developing our automatic license plate reader program. And I'm intimately familiar in the benefits the program has provided the city and our law enforcement, our department here in solving crimes in the last 10 years. To some of the points, the system isn't perfect. Yes, sometimes there are misreads, but like any other piece of equipment that law enforcement has on their tool belt, there are rules and there are training on how to deal with that information. Those plates would be confirmed by an officer that happens to locate the vehicle. It would be confirmed, and then the officer would have to develop probable cause on their own to make a stop on that vehicle based upon the hit on the plate. What my point is, is that in the last ten years, this technology has been used responsibly and without any issues or concerns. I myself have audited years' worth of plate reads. And for the most part, a lot of officers stay away from the technology because it's kind of cumbersome. doing all the searches and trying to do the investigative work behind this the System what they really rely on of those those entries that can be made in a moment's notice Take for instance a young mother is pushing a child out in a shopping cart in the store parking lot and somebody snatches that baby From the cart throws them in a car and drives out of the parking lot the mother is only able to get the last three digits of a white Toyota Camry that information can be immediately inputted into dispatch and if it goes through one of the limited locations in the county or in the city that plate can be relayed back to the officers their immediate position I don't think there's one person in this room that would sacrifice a family member for this technology and I think that that's something to keep in the back your mind yes like All information, there are civil rights concerns, but we have to trust that the officers will use that information appropriately in the course and scope of their duties and do the right thing at the right time. And so I think that the Red Bluff Police Department has demonstrated that over the last 10 years, and I think they'll continue to do so moving forward. Now with the flock technology, they may have their own issues on the back end. Again, as the chief mentioned, we didn't use that technology. We used Motorola solutions, so they may have their own issues. But I think the bottom line is how that information is used by law enforcement, much like their firearm or any other type of equipment that's on their belt. We trust they will do the right thing at the right time with that information. So if you have any other questions for me later on, I'd be happy to answer them in the historical sense. Thank you.

Thank you.

Council, I have not made up my mind about this one, and there are many of you that have not either. It's a tough one. Potential invasion of privacy is a thing that hits right here with all of us. But if that's what we pay to catch a bank robber or a child abductor or a murderer, we've got to weigh this. That's why it's not an easy answer. So go get them.

Thank you. Anyone else? Thank you. Council, anything else?

Who actually stores the data? Is that the company that we're going through that has the contract or is the data being stored by Ribleth Police Department?

It's web-based, so it's stored in the cloud, and then it's accessed by officers or investigators and audited by the commander of the unit.

On one of our servers or one of the company's servers?

It's the company's server.

Okay, no, thank you. I mean, they've changed a whole lot since I dealt with ALPRs. It was an instant hit, and if somebody was in position, you got them. If somebody wasn't, you didn't, and that was it. So it's changed a lot since I dealt with ALPRs. So thank you, Chief.

Chris? Anything? No? Cassie?

Yeah. Noted in the PAC was that, and Brianna mentioned it, I believe, that since adoption in 2016, it's now 26, we are facing multiple changes. Has there been any oversight to bring it back to council in regards to those changes?

Will you rephrase the question so I understand a little bit better?

In the last 10 years, has this subject ever come back across the dais?

No. If there's a change in law or a change in policy that requires it, then we would. But what we've done is extended the program, and it complies with all federal, state, and our local policy. So once it was approved in 2016, the only real change has been the technology because the cameras have gotten better. And again, in the last 10 years, like former Lieutenant Hanson and Supervisor Hanson said, we've had zero issues with our program because we do our due diligence and we make sure that the data is confirmed in a separate system before we make any action regarding the criminal behavior of how it's used.

If I could just make one suggestion. Annually, the law mandates that the department provide an overview of the military equipment use. And so there was the same concern about the use of military equipment. Is law enforcement using this equipment appropriately? And are there any complaints generated from it or anything like that? if the council was so concerned about the oversight, and I've heard some other in the county side, somebody asked a question about an oversight committee. I think that utilizing the same AB 481 type of process with this technology would just be an add-on to that report to simply say annually, we've had this many hits, we've had no complaints, and we're using it, we've done these audits, and here it is. It would just be a good opportunity, real easy for the, not to give you guys more work, for the police department to comply with just attack it on is another thing. LPR equipment just like the military equipment report that they provide you every year for accountability and for oversight. Thank you.

Just for the council's information that report does come from the police department via public hearing usually in May of each year.

Thank you. All right. Appreciate that. Any other comments from the public that hasn't been heard? Any questions? Cassie, do you have something else? No.

One more. One more. I understand that the policy hasn't come back, Chief. I'm looking at the original 16 agenda. And to be fair, I don't think the policy was what was in question or what was controversial at that time. The technology was controversial at that time. And it was that chief's decision to put it in front of a citizen advisory committee the technology changed, even though the policy stayed the same. And it's the technology today that is causing question, not the policy today that's causing question. And so my question is maybe at Matt's recommendation that it is high time for it to come back as an item for discussion for understanding the technology that was controversial 10 years ago. that's controversial now, because it was never the policy that was in question. It was the technology.

And if I might add to my point earlier, is since 2022, there's been legislation that's gone to the California Assembly or through the government, and it's been the attempt to regulate the process and the program and the technology, and that has failed every time because technology changes and it improves. There are risks when it comes to that, but through California and through legislation, They're trying, they being whoever writes the bills, are trying to regulate the program and the process, and that continues to fail. So something is going right, and I believe law enforcement is doing their due diligence, and we have a very good program, and it's never been abused since I've been at this agency or since it's been implemented by then-Lieutenant Hanson. So it's a good program, and I think there can be improvements with the system if there are concerns.

JR, the fellow who listed the municipalities that had the Motorola equipment and canceled the programs or suspended the programs, I would suggest that maybe Tom or Tom and Quentin might contact those departments and ask them what prompted it. If it was purely public pressure, that would be one thing. But if they had issues that had created lawsuits or if they had demonstrable difficulty with the program, I think it would be good for you to know before you brought it back to the council. I think you've got an opportunity to talk to people who made a considered decision. And I would encourage you to contact those municipalities and those departments.

Thank you, Scott. Thank you. With that, I'll close public comment at 640.

Mayor, can I add one more thing?

Yes, sir.

With the current staffing and issues that the city is facing, these cameras do not replace traditional policing, but what they do is they are a mechanism and a technology that doesn't put a police officer in harm's way. It's used to capture images, and those images are vetted by a police officer. So a police officer doesn't have to be out in the public putting themselves into harm's way trying to do the work that this technology does. So just consider that when you look forward to what this program does, because if we don't have enough police officers on the streets and you take a technology away that helps us keep the community safe, it will severely impact. hamper what law enforcement is trying to do within the city of Belleville and the community as a whole. Thank you, Chief.

I have some questions for you since public comment is closed now. Have you found any abuse from any of our staff using the system?

Not one. As the former Lieutenant Hanson said, he has done years and years of audits, and our current Lieutenant, Lieutenant Michael Brown, has done audits since he's been in his position, and we've not found any abuse or misuse of the system.

Have you found that it's assisted not only in local apprehension of crime, but also out-of-state crime, that people bring their vehicles through here and we're able to apprehend them?

it has that potential but it has the potential for missing persons and any type of crime that occurs it's not used for traffic enforcement but it does capture a license plate and if that license plate or the vehicle is involved in a crime then it gives us the tool to investigate what that situation might have been

The reason I bring that up is because a couple of years ago there was a crime that was committed either in Oregon or Washington and a vehicle came through here and we were able to read the license plate and they were apprehended, am I correct?

I'm not familiar with that specific one.

I'm familiar, yeah, and they were sent back and there were issues to, what is it, when they served papers to take them out of Tehama County and bring them to trial and where the crime was committed, but it was.

I believe you, sir.

Yeah. My point is, if there had been somebody that committed violation of personal rights to anybody, we would immediately suspend them or fire them. Am I correct?

We'd have to do an investigation to make sure that... After investigation?

Yeah. So our concern is here with the cameras is for safety and apprehension if there's a crime committed, correct?

Yes, sir.

All right. Thank you. And I'm glad that... That program, Person of Interest, was brought up because it was one of my favorite programs. And Jim Caviezel was one of my favorite actors, so I watched it. But you know what it had to do? It had to, for the safety of the citizens, before somebody was abused or a crime was committed against them, went in and tried to prevent the crime and tried to bring that person to safety. And I think the purpose of these cameras is not to surveil our citizens and put them into harm's way, but to bring them into safety. And that's the whole purpose of it. We are facing a lot of issues. If we're concerned about flock cameras, everyone, we need to be concerned when we walk into Walmart, because they got security cameras. We need to be concerned everywhere we drive out of state, because everyone has got a security camera. Because you know what? It's for crime prevention, not for the violation of individual rights. And our concern as a council is individual rights and the rights of the citizens to apprehend criminals. Because again, I relate to the point that this is a great city. People that come here say, what is it about this city? It's because we have great law enforcement. We have great fire people that work. We have great staff. Everybody working together, making this, again, I state this, and it's a true fact since it was stated, a great place to live. And we want to continue to have this a great place to live. But let me tell you, we want to make sure that our citizens utmost, their protection is our main goal. And they are protected and live here comfortably and peacefully. Because when you see citizens walking the streets and walking comfortably, our kids walk in the streets up and down to school, and we don't have any Thank God and any people being kidnapped or so forth. And we don't want it. We want to protect our citizens. And that's the purpose of license plate readers and so forth. If something happens, we want to locate that vehicle as soon as possible. When a mother comes to us and says, my child's been taken, where was it? Do you have a recognizable vehicle that we can look at through our cameras? We have that opportunity to look at. So believe me, your safety is our concern. So with that, I'll close it. And that's the last part of our information.

Pat, go ahead. I don't know what we do here. This is a discussion item. But I do think it needs to come back. Right. JR, I agree with you for the most part. One, I think we all agree that we want to fight crime. Do we want to fight crime at any expense? And is any tool, therefore, justified to fight crime? I think we will all agree that these are a good tool and they've done great things. I think that's a unanimous thing. I think we would all be unanimous on the fact that there has been no abuse so far. I think we would all agree that our bringing this back has no distrust of our police chief or police department or anything like that. That's not the case at all. Somebody brought up here though, administrations change, right? Government does not, okay, you gotta be careful using the words always or never. Government never gets smaller. It only gets bigger. And in 10 years, this has gotten bigger. Maybe only a little bit bigger, but it's gotten bigger, right? And so I think that has to be addressed and has to have some oversight to it. And I guess we would be the ones to do that as the city council. to make the decision, do we want to continue to do it or not? Ken, I'm with you. I'm undecided, man. I thought about this. Let's put this on the December 1st agenda. And guess what? I'm going to sit here for about five minutes and then I'm going to walk out that door and I'm going to be down there. So that would be very easy for me. But I don't think that would be – I've got a few months left, and I don't think that would be diligent. If it comes up before that, so be it. Then I'll deal with it. But, Ken, I'm with you. I'm undecided because it is such a good tool for sure. But at what expense? And I think that's got to be weighed, and that's what's got to be tested. The problem we've got is, okay – How many government things can we all think of that started out as fantastic ideas that all of us would think, I am all for that. Now, it is so far beyond the scope of how it started out that it's out of control. We can't even get it back under control. This isn't there that I'm not saying that yet. But do we need to be mindful of that and cautious of that? I think so. I think absolutely so, right? What was I going to say next? I was going to say something next. So the government doesn't get smaller, it gets bigger, right? Oh, administrations change, of course, right? And as you think about it, we, okay, Sheriff Kane spoke at the Westside Grain Chair. We could go tonight, I think it was, right? So... I want to choose to change, lose my train of thought. Where was I going here? I was going somewhere. Let me get it back. All right. So, oh, oh yes, that's what I was doing, right? People were laughing at a few people there that brought up the idea of us being China, right? Okay, ridiculous now? Maybe. Ridiculous five years, 10 years, 20 years in the future? I don't think it's that ridiculous because things change beyond what we can even imagine now, right? And as you think about it just this way, and maybe if society wants to go this way, then there'd be nothing I could do about it. But you think about it, Yeah, JR mentioned it. You're going to Walmart. You're filmed, right? Not exactly, and I hate overusing this because I've used this before. I won't use it then. Not exactly a direct comparison, right? Because that's not the government. We can choose to go to Walmart. We can choose to not go to Walmart. This premises is under surveillance, and we can either go in to save 50 cents or $5 or whatever, or we can turn around, right? So it's the difference between the government and private business, right? Because this is what gets brought up as well, too. You got one of these? Obviously, I do, right? I can choose to have one, or I can choose to not have one. It's a totally different ballgame with the government. But with the whole China thing, just think about it this way. right kids now today are so used to everything being filmed everything that's I have no way to verify this or not so take it with an absolute grain of salt but somebody told me here that and I don't forget what the age level was but how many of younger people today were asked if they'd be comfortable with a camera in their own house and they were good with it right it's like Were you born in America or were you born in Beijing? My point is this. As kids who are more familiar with being filmed and on camera all the time, it becomes more prevalent. It doesn't seem like a big jump to China, does it? If we as a people want to become China, then that's what we're going to become. But I don't. right so i think we have a responsibility to keep america america and i think we have at least a responsibility to discuss this no disrespect or distrust of anybody right now but i think we do have that responsibility and i think we'd only be diligent to do that so if it's proper or within etiquette within a discussion item or an informational item to suggest that it be brought back i so do or do so

I am too undecisive on it, to be honest with you. We have four stationary cameras in our town. We have over 100 cameras watching you from the Antelope Boulevard exit onto I-5 up to the Oregon border. Over 100 cameras watching your every move all the way there and all the way back. So we have four cameras protecting us here. And we got 100 cameras on I-5 just in our area. And that's just on I-5. That doesn't count the hundreds that are on the secondary highways. So if you put it in perspective, 3,500 cameras watching you throughout California and four cameras watching you in town. So again, I'm undecisive at this moment. I drive to Reading every day to work. I'm being watched. the entire time I'm on the highway. So kind of put that into perspective as well. Any other comments?

I'm just going to say thank you to everybody that came tonight. It's refreshing. Instead of having to read social media. to have you here, Brianna, and others, I'm not trying to ignore anybody, who took the time to come and actually talk to us. I try to be a very thoughtful person, and I try to weigh everything that everyone says. We've been doing this for 10 years, and just from a couple of the comments here, I have to say that it's like, do you not trust our police department? You know, if, you know, I guess since we've been doing this for ten years and no one's brought it up, you know, it gives me pause and I can rethink some things. I'll just share on a personal level. I live in an area that is right across from a preschool and my cross street is an absolute speedway. which goes right past the preschool and I see those kids every day and I'm just waiting for a disaster to happen and something happened to one of those kids. Because I know it's going to happen, I just don't know when it is going to happen. Some parents just let their three or four year olds cross the street by themselves and go into the preschool or wait for them to come out. And it's disconcerting to me. And I at least know the habits. So when I'm home, I'm watching to make sure that those kids are OK. the larger, what do you want to call it, you know what I'm talking about, the guys that sit outside my fence once in a while, they're the larger speed readers, have been outside of my fence for, I don't know, months, and I know they've gotten some repair work done on them, but I miss them desperately because it makes a huge difference for the safety of those little ones or anybody else in my neighborhood. Occasionally, a traffic cop sits in the alleyway. It's not quite as menacing as knowing that you might get a speeding ticket. It's a great preventative tool, at least in my neighborhood. So I want to stress something to you guys. I think for all of us public safety is a huge issue. I'm very well aware of a number of things that go on in this city. I'm lucky I don't have a lot of that in my neighborhood. How we approach it is key. How you deal with your neighbors and your neighborhoods is key. And I don't want to be discouraging here, but five people up here are not going to change a number of things because it takes all of us to be able to do it. We can say a number of things up here, or we can take a number of actions, and we have.

But sometimes there's no results to that because it requires your involvement.

That means in your neighborhoods. That's where it starts. So public safety is very important to me. I happen to respect the police department immensely. I respect people in law enforcement. I understand that not all of them rise to good levels sometimes, but I don't think any of us do. But I will always have respect for these guys because I have seen and heard some of the things that they've gone through, and you can't imagine it. So I will listen more. I've only received one email on this issue, one. And I usually get a ton of emails or text messages almost daily. So in the last few months, one. So if you have more that you would like to share, Brianna, Ashley, you were probably the second one I've gotten on it. If you want to share, I would be happy to talk to you guys any time. I'll call you, I'll meet with you, you can email me, I'll answer you. So let's all be thoughtful about this and we'll go, the council will move hopefully in a thoughtful way to come to some resolution of this and thank you for Supervisor Hanson for being here tonight and sharing the information that you've shared. Appreciate it.

All set.

Thank you. Cassie, anything else?

Yeah, I agree with you, Pat. I think it is not an indicator of a lack of support or adoration or love or endearment or trust of our current administration, our current chief, the decisions the department makes, the people in the chain of command, people who are doing the work in our community. to ask for citizen oversight is not an accusation it's okay i think to have thoughtful conversation um as somebody who's out there currently campaigning it is a question i have seen literally 50 times over again and not just in my email but to my face and so there's nothing wrong with bringing it back to have a conversation in public so that multiple people can bear witness to that and we can have the oversight that's being asked for okay pretty good i think we can bring this up at uh

Consensus portion of our agenda meetings, if there's consensus to put it back on council. I just want to make one more comment, and thank you Pat, thank you Chris, thank you Cassie and Mark. I'll tell you from personal experience, I recently had a fire in one of my units in Sacramento. And because somebody had a camera on their business, They were able to apprehend the individual that threw a Molotov cocktail into the garage and did serious damage to the building. But if it hadn't been for a camera, the investigative hours that the Sacramento Police Department would have had to do would have been numerous. But because they were able to literally see this individual do it was evidence to bring him to justice. So my point to you is we need to weigh this very, very carefully. And I stress the point that your safety is our main concern. That's where we are. So with that, I'll conclude this item. And once we've brought it by council, we can do it by consensus of council to bring this back up. We'll go on to agenda item number nine.

Eight.

Eight? Did I pass it already? I have a habit of doing that. OK, I'll read it. Budget update. Paul Young, please.

Honorable Mayor, members of City Council, tonight I have the City of Red Bluff budget update for the fiscal year 24-25 and 25-26. So we're going to start off with the prior fiscal year that just ended, 25-26, whoops. These amounts are from estimated actuals based on the GL balance on 9-8-2026. This is all the adjustments that were made that were presented for the city auditors. Additional adjustments are possible. So the city budget starts off with the original budget. That's the budget that's presented to the city through the budget binder. Along the year, supplemental appropriations happen, which totals into the final budget. So the first three columns show the original budget, supplemental appropriations, and then the final budget. The next budget is the estimated actuals for 25-26. And then finally is the variance column. This is the amount that strayed positively or negatively from the budget. On the top line is the general revenues. The revenues ended up about $100,000 better. There's an additional slide on this, but there were many items that were slightly above and slightly down. THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION CAME IN ALMOST EXACTLY ON BUDGET. ALTHOUGH THERE WAS SAVINGS IN THE DEPARTMENTAL PERSONAL EXPENSES, THIS WAS OFFSET BY COST ALLOCATIONS TO OTHER FUNDS. The fire department saw a positive variance of about $898,000. This is about 40% due to revenue and about 60% due to expenses. On the revenue side, they had fire reimbursement revenues of $225,000. They got money for the Brewery Creek project of $68,000. And then they had additional other revenues that were also positive to $65,000. On the expenses side, they saw a positive net cost due to salary savings. This was due to workers' comp insurance of $124,000. Overtime was $98,000 less than budgeted. Leave payouts was $70,000 less, and health insurance saw an $83,000 savings. Materials and supplies were saved $67,000. That was mostly due to professional services. And capital outlay saved $86,000. This was mostly due to the bathroom remodel that was postponed to the next year. Below that is the police department, which saw positive variance about $1.6 million of that. $1.5 million was due to positive variance due to staff turnover and vacancies. And an additional about $92,000 was due to positive revenues, mostly due to the state grant for the call center equipment and also the OTS traffic grant. Parks and Rec was about $105,000 positive. This was due to $4,000 in revenue, mostly in the pool, and also expenses had $68,000 in salary savings. 29 of that came from workers' comp insurance, and then another additional 26 came from health care insurance. Materials and supplies also saw a $33,000 positive variance, mainly due to building repair and maintenance for $15,000 and tools and equipment for $12,000. And then additionally, the community center saw a $78,000 variance, positive variance. We pay on a mutual agreement with the county on operation of it. So this is just basically our half of the expenses for the year. In the end, the final budget for the prior fiscal year went from a final budget, a reduction of $5 million, to the current estimated actual of a reduction of $2,196,876. The next slide has the supplemental appropriations that came out for the year. They haven't changed since the last time I presented. It includes the city hall change order and the River Park restrooms improvement. The next slide has the details of all the general fund revenues. Sales tax was the largest decrease of $163,000, but this was only a decrease of about 2.5%. The largest increase was in other revenues. This came from a $160,000 adjustment based on the purchasing part and fair market value of the investments that we have. All told, we had lots of ups and downs, and it came in just slightly above what was budgeted. the next slide just has a detail of what i already covered so if you want to read it later go ahead on to the current year general fund the estimated actuals are basically based on the budget expenditures are fully spent and revenues come from the projections adjustments are known for known savings at this point This budget is presented in the same style. We started out with a budget of $13.6 million in revenue, and based on current HDL projections, we're just slightly down at about $26,000. Also, the police department has currently a positive variance of $180,000 due to salary savings. So at this point, not much changes. We're only two months into the year. That savings was based on 9-4-2026. And the only adjustment we have in the revenues from the HDL is our sales tax, which they are currently projecting about $26,000 less. Now to wrap it up all together. So in the first column is fiscal year 23-24. Then the actuals for 24-25. The next two columns has for the prior fiscal year 25-26. First column is the budget and next is the estimated actuals. And then the next two columns are the current year and the current year estimated actuals. I'm going to skip down to the bottom. So we started out in 23-24 with a beginning fund balance of about $10 million. We lost $68,000 to end the year with a fund balance of about $9.9 million in the next year. we lost an additional $1.1 million to end that fiscal year at $8.7 million. In the prior fiscal year, we budgeted for a reduction of $5 million, but in the end, it's looking like it's about $2.1 million, which has changed the ending fund balance from a $3.7 million to about $6.5 million. So the major change in the current year projection is just that change in the new calculation for fund balance. So in the current estimated actual, it brings down the total ending fund balance to about $1.8 million. Here's all the information from these revenues, all wrapped up, showing you the four years also. Next, we have all the cash and investments for the city. So on the top line is the total amount of all funds for the city. As you can see, we increased throughout the COVID years into about 22. And since then, the overall trajectory of the city's cash and investment has been down. Most of that is due to the thicker dashed line above, second from the top. Those are the enterprise funds. Those have steadily decreased. These are mainly due to water and wastewater, which have been losing a lot of money. Below that is governmental funds, which are more stable. And then below that is the general fund, which saw great improvement throughout the COVID years, but has trended down in the last couple. The last slide I have is the quarter percent sales tax. We increased staffing when we started out the quarter percent sales tax, and we tracked what the actual revenues are versus the actual expenditures throughout the number of years. Lately, the people that we added due to the quarter percent sales tax the amount of expenditures related them is more than the amount of revenue that we've gotten since about the revenue peaked in 21-22 and has bounced around down and up since then. And that's all I got for today's budget tactuals. Does the city council have any questions?

Thank you, Paul. Questions for Paul? Yes.

Chris? No, I don't have any.

And from here, any questions?

Thank you, Paul. Go ahead. No, just thank you.

Thank you. Questions from the public for Paul on this? Thank you very much, everyone. That was an informational item. Again, thank you for your work, Paul. Appreciate it. We'll go on to now. Thank you, Mark. Item number nine, which is a work construction contract for Red Bluff Park Rehabilitation Project Splash Park. Robin Kaufman, please.

Hey, honorable mayor and council members. I'm going to give a brief, since we have so many people in the audience, what the intention of the River Park Rehabilitation Splash Pad project is. It is to rehabilitate the existing park to include four new pickleball courts associated with seating and lighting, a new amphitheater, a new spray pad with a splash pad, a new restroom and concession facility, renovate the existing playground surfacing access, and renovation of the existing pathways, landscaping, parking, and lighting through the existing park. That was the general description we discussed at last meeting that was included in the grant. So those are the elements that we have to install as part of this project. As I said, the City of Red Bluff received a $3 million grant through the Rural Recreation and Tourism Program funded by the State Proposition 68 funding. Some of these funds have already been utilized for the design portion of the project by Melton Design Group. We put this project out to rebid and received three bids back for the construction of this portion of the project, which we're going to call phase one. We had to pare it down to make it fall within the budget. At this point, we are at the absolute minimum as required by the grant. The lowest apparent bidder was from SNL Group at a cost of $2,498,998. Staff has reviewed their bid in addition to the other bids received and found all of them to be responsive and responsible. The total amount of funding received for the project, as I mentioned, was $3 million. From that $3 million, $1,205,852 has already been allocated either for the design portion or for pre-purchase elements such as the restroom facility, some of the splash pad water play elements. So back up. The reason we're pre-purchasing those is because we can purchase them directly as a city, not through the contractor, under a pre-approved government contract to save money for the city. There's no markup by the contractor. They've already been bid out. It's an approved public purchasing procedure that we can use to help get the materials in a more cost-effective manner for the city. Combining the lowest bid with the already allocated funds provided an over budgeted amount of $704,850. To reduce this amount not covered by the grant, the city has $200,000 in storm drain impact fees that can be used for the installation of the state required MS4 storm water trash collection systems. Those are qualified items that can be taken out of that storm drain development impact fee to reduce the impact on the parks fund and the grant. In addition to that, the Soroptimus International Red Bluff has graciously committed funding in the amount of $95,000 to the construction of this project, which will fund the butterfly shade structure, the fabrication of the big splash entry sign, and the mosaic tile murals for the entry. And attached to the staff report is their commitment letter to this point in time. They are a nonprofit group, and Vicki Miranda has been leading the efforts on collecting donations through that nonprofit group for us, for this project, since they kicked this project off for us. With all of these donations, the allocations of funding, currently we sit at a $410,000 overage from the grant. There are small amounts of money in the parks development impact fees. I think it's about $30,000 that we can allocate to reduce that from hitting the general fund. There's also a couple larger apartment projects that we're aware of that will be paying development impact fees in the next year or so. Approximately 90,000 more is what we've given the fee estimates to those developers that before they move in and start operating those, that is just for parks. So that's not touching any other development impact fees. Those are just the park development impact fees. So that can take this down an additional $90,000. As discussed at the last council meeting, we are currently applying for additional grant funds to cover the project budget shortfalls. But again, as you're all aware, grant funds are not guaranteed. And they're very competitive right now. Emmy is working tons of hours trying to put these applications together. And we're getting small ones. We haven't got any larger ones. So as directed by council, the remaining costs can either be funded from the general fund reserve or through either a private or public loan or more community involvement through donations, which the city cannot solicit. That has to be done through a nonprofit group. Tonight, as directed by council, we're asking that we award the construction contract for this project, approve a supplemental appropriation in the amount of the $410,000 from the reserves, to be able to say the project's fully funded so we can award it, get the contractors started, get the materials ordered, get some of the long lead times going so they're ready to start in the spring after this winter. Once that's done, we're also asking staff to give direction or council to give direction to staff in which efforts they would like us to continuing following through with to secure the funding either we can fund it through the general fund or go after those loans or the donations and working with nonprofits. I have Vicky Miranda here who can, you know, stand up, give you some of the information she's collected over the last couple weeks. She's been very active in what they've been doing through the SROptimus. I know there's a lot of community members here that have come together. I've answered tons of questions, and then we'll open it up to the public after that and allow you guys to answer questions. Vicky.

Vicki, would you come?

Thank you, Council, for allowing me to speak before public comment tonight. The goal for me is not to sell you on this project tonight. I hope that I've already done that and accomplished that, and I've been before you a number of times, and I hope that I've proven to you that I am a true partner in this project, and not just from 2018 to now but well into the future. So when I heard that we had a budget gap of $410,000, I put out an all call on my social media just requesting friends and business owners in town to meet me and I put out a request for people to match my $1,000 donation. So I started with $1,000 10 days ago and as of this morning, actually this afternoon, I'm at $62,470. So I wanted to show you that I'm willing to do my part. I'm not done. I have a good number of conversations with a number of corporations, businesses, small business owners, large business owners, social clubs, other nonprofits that are digging deep. So folks, please know that our community members are in it and we all want to do our share to make this happen and see it through. I've been up here a number of times. It always seems that I always follow the finance report, and sometimes that's a good thing and sometimes that's not a good thing. But, you know, what I've heard tonight is we have some savings and some surplus that we've not seen before in the past. So I'm hoping that you guys can I see that maybe now is a good time to invest in our community and to appropriate these funds and to be the partner that I have been. So thank you.

Stay right there. Would you please?

Sure.

On behalf of myself as a mayor and on behalf of council, we want to say thank you. And not only that, I think there's a great group of people here that would like to give you a round of applause for what you're doing. all right you know it's it's a great a great you know people we are working and Vicki is there she's put in her her time and her effort and a lot of you are doing the same thing and I challenge you to follow her and just pitch in and just help her because we're help we're building this city together This is our city. This is not somebody else's town. This is our town. This sounds like a Christmas thing, doesn't it? But this is our town. And we make this happen. And we're making this happen because of you and this council. We're faced with incredible decisions to make. And this is one of them. Because regardless, we want to make this happen. This council wants to make this happen. But Vicki has put a lot of time and effort And she's to be celebrated and thanked very much by this council. And they are thanking her. But you as a community. And again, Vicki, thank you so much. Thank you. We appreciate it. I appreciate that. And we look forward to continuing to work. Anybody have any questions for her from council, please?

I just have a question for Robin. I mean, if somebody has a question for Vicky, that's fine. But stay right there. Thank you, Vicky.

Because you're working there. Just stay right there.

Again. There's so many numbers here that I just, I think I can make this simple in the fact that when we left the last meeting, I understood, OK, there's $400,000 roughly that were short. We were going to have to pay back $400,000 if we did nothing. So we can either pay $400,000, which is going to be less because of community donations and this fund and that fund and this plus that plus this. And we might have to pass the hat tonight or something. I don't know. So that sounds like a no-brainer to me, $400,000, pay it back and walk away with nothing, or $400,000 and walk away with a splash pad. But just one question. $3 million grant. $2.5 million estimate. Mm-hmm. $400,000 shortfall. So if my math is correct, that left us with a remaining balance of $2.1 million. If the estimate was $2.5 and we're $400,000 short, that means $2.1 was available to us still. And we were told that if we did nothing, if we just rejected the project, we'd have to pay back $400,000. But if there's 900,000 gone already, where did 500 more go?

I got it for you. I pulled all the numbers. I've gone back and forth. So we have currently paid out and have allocated funding from the state for the amount of 323,700. So that's the amount of design costs we have spent so far. That is what we would be required to pay back at this time. The gap that you're seeing is because when they were doing the design, instead of putting all items on the contractor to bid, they pulled elements out and created a city purchase list. So that gap is for the restroom structure and some of the spray elements. So that's where that 500 floating out there is for in a comparison versus the design cost and the... and the money spent, we have not spent that money, but it doesn't go into the contractor's number yet because we're not running it through them. The city will manage that and submit those invoices directly. Make sense? And then they bid on the installation of those items. So the contractor has already put in their budget the installation, prep, pad, everything for the restroom. We're just physically purchasing the restroom as a precast restroom and getting it here.

Thank you, Robin.

You're welcome. Thank you. So, Robin, I know I've been a pest. I'm so sorry. 410 is the gap. Yes. We have 30 or so plus another 90 in developmental impact fees. That takes us down to about 270ish. Correct. Vicky brought in another 62. That actually makes the actual gap more like 208. Correct. Not 410. Correct. agree proceed award the bid get things rolling ready to go the liability we're accepting is more or less 208 correct not 400 correct at which point it would be twice as much to abandon the project

Yeah, $330,000 to abandon the project.

Do we have to decide tonight on whether or not we approach that liability with the general fund or a loan, or we can approach that conversation as to how we want to attack that then? We're just accepting the liability of the $208,000 tonight.

In order to award the project, it has to be fully funded. So what we're asking tonight is to allocate money into the grant fund from the general fund, general reserve, to cover it, but we know we're not going to spend all of that. Make sense?

I guess my question is, of the 208, if Vicki continues because she sounds like she's going to continue, that can go down and down and down.

And then it just gets put back into the general fund once this project's done and we go to the next.

So we can continue to close that gap. Yes. Perfect.

And that's what the intention is. We'll fully fund it so the money's there. We expend. We don't carry the grant money here. We expend, and then we get reimbursed. So that will create money in that account also to do that. And extend the time frame to achieve it.

Yep.

The money has to be there guaranteed to proceed.

Yes. Chris, anything? No, I probably have this picture now. Okay. Yeah, thank you.

Pat, anything else?

I don't think so.

No. Mark? No. Okay. I'll open it up for public comment on this particular item.

Hi. My name is Amy Scudder. I'm a local business person and a grant consultant. I wanted to give a little bit of context and clarification of some of the things that I've seen out there. There's a lot of misinformation and just people not knowing how things work, generally speaking. When we wrote this grant in 2022, The project was developed through extensive community engagement, and the features that are in the grant that are now deliverables were prioritized by our residents, and the costs were carefully evaluated and adequately budgeted to support those priorities, which were incorporated, as we said, as the deliverables. The scope and the funding strategy were reviewed and approved by both the city manager and the city council at that time. This project represents a remarkable level of community support that we have not seen since the last I can remember was the 1980s when Goldie Watson pushed for the community center with the little cans at the grocery store. And we have a community center because of that. As community members, we've placed our trust in our city's leadership to steward these public resources responsibly and honor the shared commitment to see this project through. Unfortunately the project has faced repeated delays through no fault of the community or the grant funding. While challenges arise in any major project, the responsibility for overcoming those challenges ultimately rests with the city. It is time for the city to put some skin in the game to honor your obligation to complete this project on time. Failure to do so not only has a negative impact on the city's reputation with the state funding agencies, but it will also undermine your ability to obtain future grants with the state, but more importantly, it erodes the public's trust in local government. Trust is built when commitments are honored and outcomes are delivered. The community has already demonstrated extraordinary support and commitment. It's now time for the city to demonstrate that same level of commitment by taking a decisive action to complete the project. I strongly encourage you to accept the current bid and commit the necessary resources to address the budget shortfall created by project delays without continued burden and reliance on the community to raise additional funds for a project that originally had sufficient funding to complete. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else?

Good evening, council members. My name is Matt Goody. I'm the president of the Northeastern California Building Construction Trades Council. So I have two questions. I think this is a great project, awesome project. What is the contractor going to be doing for local workforce development on this project? Are they going to be employing apprentices? No, no answer. Okay. Second question is, who's responsible for making sure that the right wages are paid on this project? That would be you guys, the awarding agency. We have an answer over here for you.

Yeah, we will follow all public works, prevailing wage, apprenticeships. All of that is written in the documents. All bids were done through the prevailing wage process. And I will be doing the audits and following up on all the documents that are submitted.

That's great. I hope I don't have to come back after this project is finished and be the bearer of bad news, because I see wage theft all the time, all the time in this community. And I'm sick of it. It's not going to happen in my jurisdiction. and it's not gonna happen in my hometown. Thank you.

Anyone else?

Could we establish a timeline? I mean, is it like a night or some kind of timeline to where... We can get it out to the public. And I'm sure Vicki will do it. But can we establish a timeline tonight? How much up against the gun are we going to be?

What we're up against again tonight is holding the contractor's bid costs and legally required to do that. So if we award them, we aren't anticipating starting the project till spring. The money coming from the city or donations or any of those funds will be the absolute last spent. We will spend the grant funding out first, which is allowed through this grant. We verified that, that we didn't have to put any in ourselves. So we have time to find this money to go after loans, to reallocate, to talk to council about those items. And once we select this contractor, we will be doing, you know, making sure we're doing our due diligence, that the project's not changing, the costs aren't going up, and all of those items. So we do have some time to do this. We just want to award it so we don't lose this contractor and waste more time, effort, and the cost going up again.

Thank you. Anyone else?

Robin, I'm a contractor's daughter, so I know how things work. Is waiting until spring, is that allowing for prices to be able to go up of some sort because of inflation?

No, their prices are held in their bid. We have talked to the contractor. It was his suggestion to wait until the spring because we won't be opening up a SWPPP stormwater, which is paying for daily, weekly, monthly monitoring, depending on how wet of a season we have. We're also worried it's in a floodway, and we don't want to put infrastructure in that then has to be redone in the spring. So the contractor's not changing his prices. He's going to be ordering all his materials, and we will be ready to go as soon as possible. Okay. Yep.

Thank you, Nikki. Maybe we should do a softball tournament again.

Thank you.

Hello mayor and council members my name is Brittany Greer and I am so glad this is on the agenda today and I appreciate the engineers insight and of course Vicky's push in bringing this park to Red Bluff you know it started as just kind of mumbling amongst our community members and to have a true champion among us to get this park this far we're asking you us community and asking you to step up and join us I don't think it's by coincidence that this portion is after the budget We ask you to step up, to join this effort.

It's great to have these options already outlined for you and to come up with that funding as the engineer had outlined.

So I look forward to the next conversation you all have in bringing Splash Park to reality.

Thank you.

I like your T-shirt. I love tacos so much. I like that. Anybody else? Okay. Having no one?

Thank you, Vicki, and all who have worked so hard on it.

Appreciate it. I want to, again, stand behind what just Mark said right now. Without citizens stepping up, this is not going to happen. And Vicki, you were an initial part of this. And this council is excited to make it happen. And we're going to get it done. Regardless, we're going to get this done. so uh having a close public comment at 7 35 now uh anything else from council any questions anything else anybody so what i'm going to do i think approach this on mr attorney one at a time correct because we have an option on number three So I'll have a vote on each one, correct? Okay. So I want to ask council to make a motion on number one of item agenda number nine, which is award the construction contract for the Red Bluff River Park Rehabilitation Project to SNL Group in the amount of $2,498,998. So moved. So moved by Cassie Pope. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Mark Clement. Anita, please take the roll.

Councilmember Pope? Yes. Councilmember Hurton? Yes. Councilmember Deiters? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Clement? Yes. Mayor Gonzalez?

Yes.

We need a motion on number two, which is a supplemental appropriation in the amount of $410,000 for 71 grant funds, 7-1, River Park Grant Department. Did I say that right? Okay, very good. So moved. So moved by Pat Hurton. Second. Second by Mark Clement. Anita, please take the roll.

Council Member Pope? Yes. Council Member Hurton? Yes. Council Member Deiters?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Clement? Yes. Mayor Gonzales?

Yes. That passes unanimously. Number three, give direction to staff if the efforts to secure additional grant funds fail either A, fund the remainder by looking for other public financing or private loan options to find the best loan terms for the city to fund the remaining $410,000 not covered by the grant paid by the general fund or Transfers funds from general fund to cover the additional cost and approve $410,000 budgetary increase in the transfers in 71 grants fund and transfer out in fund 10 general fund. Do we have a motion? I mean a recommendation and a B.

No new debt.

No. No new debt.

You said B, Mark? B, yes. Yeah, I agree with B.

Okay, so we have a motion by Mark on B, a second by Pat on B. So I need to please take the roll.

Do we have any discussion? Chris?

I think we've had discussion on that.

I just, I want to make sure it's item 3B410, budgetary increase in transfers, grant funds and transfers in the general fund. We're paying it from the general fund, correct? Correct.

The remainder that's not covered by additional funding we can add that to that motion, correct? Okay. So the development impact fees will be allocated first. We will probably be bringing – I know I will be bringing a staff report back again in the future to accept the donations so we can allocate the specific funding at that point in time.

I just wanted to make sure what we were doing here. Yes. Yes.

It all won't come out of the general fund. There will be other pots of money. We just have to have the money in there first to allocate it.

Okay. So it has to come out of the general fund first, period.

Correct, but it all won't ultimately come out.

Okay, so we don't have to make an adjustment to the motion?

No, no, I just wanted to be clear. Okay, very good.

Okay, so it was made a motion by Pat Hurton. Who made the motion?

I just threw out there B, and we agreed unanimously, so I will motion.

Your motion? Motion made by Mark Clement. Do I have a second?

Now I'll second.

Now, okay, Pat will second. And this is on B of item, section three of agenda item nine. So we're voting on B. So there's been made a first and a second. So Anita, please take the roll.

Council Member Pope. Yes. Council Member Hurton. Yes. Council Member Deiters. Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Clement. Yes. Mayor Gonzalez.

Yes. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Vicki. Thank you, guys. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Vicki. Look forward to this happening. It's going to be great for our city, everyone. Thank you so much for coming. Next is agenda item number 10, report on sales tax first quarter 2026, informational item only, no action needed. Paul Young.

Honorable Mayor, members of city council, as part of the city's consultant agreement with HDL companies, monitors and projects sales tax and provides the city with quarterly sales tax report in the California consensus forecast. Attached to the staff report is the first quarter sales tax report for 2026. This is for amounts collected January to March 2026, but dispersed to the city March to June 2026. Due to spending seasonality, HDL provides the quarterly sales tax report comparing the first quarter 2006 with the first quarter 2025. Receipts for the sales Red Bluff were 30.8% below the same quarter in 2025. Excluding adjustments, receipts decreased 10.8% from the prior quarter. Sales tax categories of general consumer goods, restaurants and hotels, and food and drug saw some growth, but business and industry, state and county pools, auto and transportation, and fuel and service stations saw significant decreases in tax collected. The decreases in state and county polls were mostly due to a one-time purchase of equipment in the first quarter in 2025. The other decreases were most likely due to work conflicts that started in the first quarter of 2026. Also attached to this staff report is the HDL's California consensus forecast. This report has current statewide sales tax trends and economic drivers for June 2026. And the fiscal impact of the city shows the actual amounts of sales taxes recorded. At this time, we have gotten the June 2026 sales tax. So the 2526 ended up with a net change from the prior estimate of down $110,757. The current fiscal year we're in, they made no changes in this quarter on the estimates. The annual sales tax used for the 2526 budget was originally $6,433,177. The actual amount is about $163,141 less than what's currently budgeted. In the current year's budget, the original budget had a amount of $6,493,000, and the current projection is about $26,000 less. And I'm available for any questions if you have any.

Council, any questions for Paul? I know.

No, but you should clear a room real quick. Finance always clears a room. Paul does it again.

Paul, you have rides again. All right. Any questions? Thanks, Paul. Thank you, Paul. Any questions from the public for Paul? Nothing? OK. This is an informational item only, so we'll go on to, am I correct? Yes. Go on to number 11. Tehama County Air Pollution Control District, Carl Moyer Program, Low Emissions Equipment Incentive Program, and who is in charge of that, please? Scott Miller.

Thank you, Mayor, members, council. What we have before you in a nutshell is a grant program that will replace, provide funding to replace some of our outdated equipment, one in particular, older 1971 Ford tractor. with the newer one with the Kubota the reason why they were bringing this to council this grant does require a 20 match for it so that we need to get authorization from from the body this isn't the first time that you saw this program this was application was made last year as well we were unsuccessful so I figured we'd repackage it and go for it again for tonight With that, I can answer any questions, or Amy would be able to do it because she did all the heavy leg work for getting this before you.

Who did that?

Amy, our grants writer extraordinaire. She's going after more park woods.

Yeah, I just didn't hear who said. Would you raise your hands? There you are.

We can bring her up to speak.

You want an applause, too?

Thank you, Amy. Real good. Questions? Counsel for Scott. All right. Priscilla Burke's online. Okay. Priscilla, can you hear us? Priscilla, are you on the line?

I am. Can you hear me?

Now we can hear you. Go ahead.

I was just actually reviewing the application, and I'm so glad that you guys are using this. That is actually how we got our replacement tractor, and I think it's a really great program. But I did want to note that on the application, the amount that you guys are requesting is for the base – equipment as well as all of the attachments. And in my experience, unless they've changed it in the last five years, you can only ask for up to 80% of the base equipment. So if I were you guys, I would totally look into that before submitting the application because that might be a reason why it would be rejected from the program.

Okay. Amy, can you answer that? You did have to come up.

Absolutely, we can look into that and and make sure that we are compliant with all grant applications, required needs.

Very good. Do we need to postpone a vote on this then? Or do we need to proceed? No, just go forward.

You don't need to postpone it. Okay, very good.

If we take out the implement, it would reduce the amount. So it would 20% would be less than what you would be approving this evening.

I see. Okay. So we'll just, okay, you'll look into it. We'll proceed for now for what we have. Okay. Very good. Thank you, Priscilla. Appreciate it. Again, did I open up for public comment? No? I'm doing it now. All right. Nothing from the public. Council, any further questions?

No. Questions? No?

Do I have a motion on agenda item number 11? I have a motion. Motion by Mark Clement. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Chris Deiters. Anita, please take the roll.

Council Member Pope? Yes. Council Member Hurton? Yes. Council Member Deiters? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Clement? Yes. Mayor Gonzales?

Yes. Passes unanimously. Thank you, Council. We'll go on to... item 12 has been pulled i'm sorry item 12 has been pulled yes thank you yeah well i was going to go on thank you tom appreciate that uh do we need to vote on that anything just it was just pulled right tom we need to do any action no okay thank you uh okay we'll go on to committee reports council antelope sewer and water district no meeting No meeting. Chamber of Commerce, Tom already shared what has come up for that. Thank you, Tom. City Council Ad Hoc Committee, Chris?

We're still working on a date. Hopefully soon.

Soon a date. Thank you, Chris. Appreciate that. Committee Action Agency, Chris?

Next meeting is 9-17.

Okay, thank you. Executive Committee?

Next meeting is November 5th.

November 5th. LAFCO, no meeting. Revloff Community Center.

November 19th.

November 19th, thank you, Tom. Air pollution, no meeting. Tehama County Continuum of Care, Chris and Mark.

We met on the 9th. I'm only going to mention one thing because I think it's important. The Navigation Center, as you guys know, provides meals along with other things, along with some of the churches here in town. Last month there was almost 13,000 meals served here between the Navigation Center and St. Pete's and so forth and so on. That's a whole lot of meals. So clearly we have a need and other nonprofits are doing as much as they can. The continuum of care continues to worry about funding going forward because almost everything we do is grant funded and it's getting harder and harder to get those funds. One day you have them and the next day you don't. So I just wanted to share that particular number. And we're also excited about the apartment complexes that are in route. That's going to be very, very helpful. And that's all I have.

Thank you, Chris. Tama Consulate Waste Management Agency. Chris?

October 5th.

October 5th. Transportation Commission.

September 28th.

September 28th. Thank you, council. Additional council comments and other meetings attended? Anybody? None? Okay. We'll go on to future agenda items by consensus of council.

I would suggest that we discuss and possibly provide direction to staff regarding the automated license plate readers.

Okay. Do I have consensus on that?

I concur.

Okay.

I didn't hear you.

Can you say that again?

So it would be for discussion and possible direction to staff regarding automated license plate readers.

I concur.

Okay. Bring that up for future item. Do you have that, Tom?

yeah um if i would suggest probably not having that at your next meeting considering it's the protest hearing for the proposition 218 so likely the soonest could be your second meeting in october but i'll confirm that with chief ortega that we can make that date very good thank you tom all right anything else council and future items

I haven't heard none. We do have a closed item session. I will, let's see, labor negotiations. I'm going to present the Mr. Attorney to give us a little summary of that, please.

You're referring to the closed? Yes. The closed item? My understanding, as you said, is it addressing negotiations, which is appropriate for closed session.

OK, very good. Thank you. So I'll open it up for public comment on this. I haven't received none. I will conclude this part of the meeting and go into closed session and giving everybody a five-minute break, OK? Thank everyone. Thank you, Anita. All right, we're back into session at 8.37. I turn it over to our attorney for a summary of report.

Yes, the city council went into closed session to discuss Thank you very much. Thanks, counsel. Nothing? Okay, thank you. So we'll conclude our meeting at 837.